Author: The Captive Lion

For those of you still using free Hotmail or Yahoo! email accounts, there is a better alternative out there now. It’s from Google and it’s called Gmail. You can only sign up if you have an invitation so I thought I’d be nice and dole out some invitations this week. Google has a tour of the new service so you can see how it works. Post a comment if you want an invite.

Update: Whirlyball highlight reel has been archived: whirlyball.mov.

Weekend Recap by MR

Truthfully, I wasn’t going to do a write-up on our weekend in Seattle from a few weeks ago… I mean, honestly, how many stories about Krusty loosing his ID can the Internet support? Anyway, I couldn’t resist, here’s a couple highlights…

First off, hail to Whirlyball… The new Official Sport of Zillionaires. Other nominees for this distinction included: bocce ball, horseshoes, dunk hoops, paintballing, shuffle puck, and fox hunting.

As expected, a round of the Ding! Ding! game erupted during a 24-story ride in the elevator of a luxury hotel. Unfortunately, Krusty’s friend Rossi didn’t understand the “rules” involved, and simply grabbed Krusty’s neck and started bashing his head against the wall of the elevator. Not cool, man. Not cool. As everyone knows, the Ding! Ding! game is not a barbaric fight to the death, but rather, a graceful ballet of cheap shots and sucker punches… Sadly, Rossi’s actions robbed the Ding! Ding! game of its artistry.

While we’re on the subject, I’m not sure why the Ding! Ding! game always seems to flare up in elevators. Perhaps it’s the confined space. It could be the ring-like atmosphere. I can’t explain it, but elevators just seem to be the favorite venue for the Ding! Ding! game. It’s gotten to the point where I can’t ride in an elevator any more without subconsciously protecting my genitals.

We stopped for a few pitchers at the Pike Pub Brewery on Saturday afternoon. We sat in a back booth, pounding beers, completely unaware of the celebrities in our midst. Thankfully, Dave was there to point out that the table across the bar was filled with famous Internet-related icons, including the developer of the software that powers this website. In unison, the rest of us glanced over, nodded, and then resumed drinking our beer. But in Dave’s world, we were in the presence of rock stars. For the rest of the afternoon, Dave watched them from across the room, plotting his approach…

As we were leaving the bar, Dave made his move. He walked up to their table, introduced himself, began praising their products, and thanked them for their contributions to the Internet world. He didn’t actually use the phrase, “I’m your biggest fan,” but he came damn close. Since he had pretty much morphed into a groupie at this point, I was relieved that he didn’t end up tossing his panties and room key onto their table. Thankfully, the guys were cool about it and actually seemed to appreciate Dave’s adulation, even though it meant autographing his cleavage…

As you can imagine, we Zillionaires have amassed our respective fortunes in a variety of different ways. However, most of us still have significant holdings in childhood investments diversified between baseball cards, Garbage Pail Kids, and Star Wars action figures. Naturally, we made a point of venturing over to the vintage toy store at Pike Place to check on the value of our portfolio. Thankfully the cash value of these investments is still strong, meaning I will someday be able to retire securely as a Garbage Pail Kids tycoon.

Horrible news today. Mitch Hedberg has passed away. Many of you probably have no idea who Mitch Hedberg is, so I’ll tell you. He was a comic genius. And I don’t say that lightly.

I first saw Mitch perform on a late night Comedy Central one-man stand-up show. He was so funny that I told myself to remember his name. One of his jokes had me laughing so hard that I had no choice but to memorize it as well. Fast-forward two or three years and MR and I are in Washington D.C. walking past the Improv and I see that Mitch Hedberg is performing that weekend! I immediately wet myself and set upon convincing MR that we must, at all costs, make it to the show to see Mitch live. My interest, of course, unfailingly means that MR must dash to the nearest phone booth to assume his alter-ego Uncle Fuddyduddy. He starts pissing and moaning about how going to the show will throw our itinerary/spreadsheet off by a few hours. I tell him that he and his money belt can count me out of anything on the agenda anyway as I will go to the show with or without him. With the gauntlet having been thrown down, MR concedes to go to the show but promises “on the record” that I will endure nothing but elbows in the sternum for the rest of the trip if Mitch Hedberg doesn’t deliver.

We sat in the front row of the comedy club at a table with a lone Mitch fan from the Baltimore area. After the three of us suffered through some talentless openers (and I endured MR’s hackneyed routine of blaming me for their incompetence), Mitch took to the stage. He blazed through an hour of one-liners, quirky observational humor, and a half-dozen whisky sours. When he’s on stage, Mitch hides behind sunglasses, never looks up at the audience, but instead times every joke off the level of laughter in the audience. He is the only comedian I’ve ever seen that you had to see in person to really get the joke. His voice, his delivery, his absurdity completely overtook me and I laughed so hard at things I never could have thought up. I became a true Mitch Hedberg fan that night, but even more shocking, so did MR.

I’ve since had the pleasure of seeing Mitch perform three other times. I could hear the same jokes and laugh just as hard. That is an unheard of rarity for me. But what made me an even bigger fan was that I could take anyone to see Mitch and I knew they would laugh themselves hoarse. His sense of humor was completely unique but didn’t rely on shocking, offending, or belittling anyone or anything. He took comedy to it’s most basic and genuine level. I honor that and aspire to it.

So, to you Mitch, I say thank you. I wish I’d been able to tell you this stuff in person one day. But maybe somebody will read this and search out your humor and be inspired like I was.

I’ll leave you with a few of the many hilarious jokes written by Mitch Hedberg:

I was in Downtown Boise, Idaho, and I saw a duck, and I knew the duck was lost, ‘cuz ducks ain’t s’posed to be downtown. There’s nothin’ for ’em there. So I went to a Subway sandwich shop, I said, “Let me have a bun.” But she wouldn’t sell me just the bun, she said that I had to have something on it. She told me it’s against regulations for Subway to sell just the bun. I guess the two halves ain’t supposed to touch. So I said, “Alright, well, put some lettuce on it,” which she did. She said, “That’ll be $1.75.” I said, “It’s for a duck.” And they said, “Alright, well, that is free.” See, I did not know that. Ducks eat for free at Subway! Had I known that, I would have ordered a much larger sandwich. “Let me have the Steak Fajita Sub – but don’t bother ringing it up, it’s for a duck!

I had a bag of Fritos, they were Texas grilled Fritos. These Fritos had grill marks on them. Hell yeah, reminds me of summer time, when we used to fire up the barbeque and throw down some Fritos. I can still see my dad with the apron on, better flip that Frito, dad, you know how I like mine.

The depressing thing about tennis is that no matter how much I play, I’ll never be as good as a wall. I played a wall once. They’re fucking relentless.

Read more jokes by Mitch Hedberg…

or listen to a few clips here.

Ninety-six percent of my life is virtual. I’ve timed it and I’m always about thirteen seconds away from the Internet. You all know this. For goodness sake, I’m taking more technical support calls than Microsoft these days. Granted, I sat down at MR’s computer over Christmas break and in about five minutes turned it from a stinking pile of crap into a shiny red Ferrari. Needless to say, this doctor doesn’t mind making house calls when a trip to the Zillionaire’s Lounge is involved. So in this virtual life, new social customs are arising. In the interest of science, I feel obliged to share some of the details of my so-called email life.

First off, we are all at very different “virtual lives.” This must be taken into account when writing an email. Am I going to get a response back next week or is it going to be in two minutes? Is this going to be more of a conversation or single-spaced autobiography? For example, I will break this down by analyzing my email habits with some of the commenters on this site. If your results are different with these folks, don’t take offense. These values are not constant and change frequently.

1. MR: Currently, the forecast for MR is pretty sunny. Right now, I have solid expectations that I will hear back from an email within the hour. The email will also be of notable length. Frequency, due to these factors, is greatly inhibited and average email count is one a day. Some visitors might be surprised to read that these are almost never funny but instead are usually somewhat serious discussions of different facets of our lives.
2. CK: Forecast on this guy is freezing cold with an occasional absolute blizzard. We’ll go months between emails then one day five or six back and forth. They are always of high quality so perhaps that is the root cause of the dry spells. No fluff. Just straight freestyle, off-the-cuff comedy.
3. Solo: Little cloudy here. We don’t get into the riffs that we once did on email. I think most of it stems from the fact that last year we both overdosed on virtuality. We were ichatting, isighting, xboxing, and emailing. It was out of control. It was like watching a television show of his life and, let me tell you, that ain’t reality tv. That is like watching the Discovery channel. He is the whole circus people, not just the dancing bears. I kid, I joke… :)
4. Etc.. (See, I didn’t leave you out. You know who you are. Yeah, this is for you. I shouted you out on the website. Yes, you! You reading this.)

Another facet of this conversation is about quality not quantity. I can’t always bring my “A” game. In fact, I rarely do. I’m ok with that. Sometimes, I’m just conducting business. Sometimes I’m catching up. Sometimes I’m trying to get you to respond with some witty banter so we go back and forth. Be thankful when you receive these emails as it’s kinda like the behind the scenes look at Zillionaire. The E! True Hollywood Emails of the site, if you will.

In conclusion, I eagerly await converting my existence to a 100% online lifestyle. It was my New Year’s resolution after all. I hope to see you all on the other side.